Federal cabinet likely to meet soon

| Implementation on SC verdict in Asghar Khan case

LAHORE - The federal government is all set to hold a special sitting of the cabinet for devising a mechanism to implement the Supreme Court verdict in Asghar Khan case.

Sources said the meeting might be held on Monday under chair of the prime minister to discuss outlines of the implementation plan of the historic verdict. A four-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar has already sought reply from the government regarding implementation on its 2012 verdict, giving government a week to prepare mechanism of action plan.

Since PML-N government’s tenure is ending on May 31, it is serious to implement top court order in its spirit, added the sources.

Air Marshall (r) on June 16, 1996 wrote a letter to then CJP Sajjad Ali Shah which contained names of politicians who had allegedly received money from the ISI ahead of the 1990 polls. The funds were provided by Younas Habib, the chief executive officer of Habib Bank Limited (HBL), then a government bank.

In its 2012’s verdict, delivered after 16 years of application, the Supreme Court had ruled that former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg and ex-ISI chief Assad Durrani acted in violation of the Constitution by facilitating a group of politicians and political parties, to ensure their success against rival parties in the 1990 general elections. It ordered necessary action against all those persons involved in the illegal act. However, the apex court’s orders were not implemented by the PPP and PML-N governments during their respective tenures.

Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar recently took action against non-implementation of the SC order and on Tuesday it gave government a week to prepare an action plan to comply with the court directions.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has also informed the apex court that Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg and Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani would be summoned soon to finalise the inquiry in the Asghar Khan case whereby they distributed Rs140 million to the PPP opponents ahead of the 1990 elections.

Some persons who allegedly received funds are not alive. All except one politician have denied having received any funds. Senior politician Abida Hussain is the only politician who had the guts to admit she had received the funds. She told a TV channel that she was information minister in Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi’s cabinet when she received Rs1 million to join the IJI. She said she was told that Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia had sent this money through Mahmood Haroon. She had then also revealed that Nawaz Sharif, Zafarullah Jamali and Mir Afzal Khan were also among the recipients.

Late Prof Ghafoor of JI had said that he had no information that his party had ever received any money from the ISI.